In today blog, I am going to share a story of recent visit to one of the most religious Hindu temple in North India. That journey has made my faith stronger than ever towards the supreme power. Today I am going to share my Kedarnath Yatra.
Kedarnath is god Shiva temple in Rudaraprayg district in Uttarakhand. This temple is built by Pandavas in treta Yug and later on founded by the shankracharya. Kedar valley is surrounded with huge mountains. There is a white huge glacier just behind the temple. It is said that this place is a meeting point of heaven and earth.
The views you get once you reach the temple will blow your mind. I have seen all these images in internet so many times. I always wanted to visit Kedarnath temple but this year it came to existence that I can fulfill my dream. So as the authority announced the opening date of the temple. I just thought of going on the very first day of it.
Preparation of the Yatra
Preparation started wit how to reach kedarnath. In todays world, our research start with the internet. So I started gathering information about Kedarnath I read articles, blog & have seen videos and noted all the points. Also there are many dedicated Youtube channel on Kedarnath and they are sharing good current information about weather & road condition, registration, on going price & etc. Rural_tales is one of them and sharing enough good information to help people. So I decided to take public transport from Delhi to Haridwar and then Haridwar to Sonprayag.
I am travel content producer so I post one day that I am planning to visit Kedarnath. One of my oldest friends did commented on the post and told me that he wanted to join. The most important thing is how to reach and where to stay. As my road map was clear by the help of rural tales and now I have to book stay. When it comes to booking hotel in Kedarnath temple then only online option is GMNV(garhwal mandal vikas nigam) but the problem is that there is no booking available.
All the days of may and june are booked. Still I decided to check on daily basis. One day I got one window to book grounded tent and within 10 minutes I got the booking. So now route map is done, stay at kedarnath temple is done. So we both are quite relaxed that most of the thing is sorted now.
Journey started
Opening date of temple was 6th of the May and our plan is to reach the temple by 5th night so that we can enter the temple on 6th morning. On the day of leaving from Delhi, atul consulted someone and they have told them to take direct bus to Guptkashi and while researching there is no information available of that. But this seems very interesting because Guptkashi is quite near to the sonpragarg only an hour away. We decided to take this bus and if not possible then we follow our older route map. We reached the bus station at 8Pm and the time of the bus was 9pm.
Bus came and it was already full. People got the online booking of the all the seats. Atul chatted with bus conductor and we got two seats which is not exactly the seats but somehow we managed to get into the bus. There is one guy on the bus Ankit who didn’t get the seat but ready to take the bus. I asked him how he going to spend the night just by sitting on the floor. He said, he just want to reach Guptkashi and this bus is the best option he can get. Around 9Pm our journey started from Delhi and reach guptkashi by 10 am next day on the 4th May.
Most of the passengers are for Kedarnath yatra. So we de-boarded the bus, now are almost 8-9 people leaving for the next destination which is Sonprayag. There are 5 male group, one couple and one solo and atul & me. We took the taxi and now we headed towards the Sonprayag after almost an hour drive we reach at Sonprayag.
Registration at Sonprayag
Most of us had already done the online registration. Few of them have to register offline at the point. After the registration again we have to take the taxi to Gaurikund. This is the last point of the road after that you have to walk. At gaurikund we need to book the hotel for night stay and we got the hotel within half an hour. Our plan is to reach the Kedarnath temple with panch mahadev doli. It is a ceremony of temple opening.
This doli has started its journey from ukhimath on the 3rd may and going to reach kedarnath temple on 5th evening. So on the 4th of the may doli has to reach gaurkund and take the rest.
PanchMukhi Mahadev Darshan
After few hours around 5 pm the sound of army band and hail of mahadev surrounded. We understand that mahadev has come to gaurkund. We all run towards the Gauri temple to catch the glimpse of Panchmujhi mahadev. The temple is 100m away from our hotel, within a minutes we reach to the point where we got the chance to see the god shiva. It was sacred moment whole valley is charged and celebration is on.
It was like a festival where hundreds of devotees chanting one single mantra HAR HAR MAHADEV. Everybody is bow down to the panchmukhi mahadev. The celebration, the dance, the music is keep going till hours. I cannot forget this moment, faith of God, faith of believe can be seen here.
After sometime we all got chance to enter the temple and take blessing from the Panch mukhi mahadev. I feel blessed and get closer to the faith of God. The energy I can feel there was quite a different and I cannot explain in words. After that I realize this is why I came here. And now we all are excited to reach the temple tomorrow and wanted to see the Mahadev and the place known as heaven on earth.
While at the dinner we sat together and decided to start our yatra around 5AM so that we can reach the temple by 3-4 pm. We wanted to reach the temple with the Doli but we all know that we cannot match up to the speed of local people. So we decided to leave early. Here our second day ends here and we will start our Journey tomorrow.